Author name: Lynne Kiesling

Passin’ the Buck

I wonder if California’s politicians will ever stop externalizing all of the responsibility for their failed electricity restructuring. Now they are moving beyond placing all of blame on Enron and other “greedy, out-of-state, price gouging” power suppliers to Perot Systems, the company that wrote the software to implement California’s failed “market” design and made marketing …

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Stasis

In terms of energy markets, the news today seems to be no news. Prices are not fluctuating much, domestic gasoline inventories are higher than last year at this time, OPEC producers are pumping 1.4 million barrels per day over their stated quota (that’s 6 percent).

Old Energy, New Energy

A Reuters article today posted on Yahoo Financial News illustrates a fascinating aspect of the energy future — the old fossil fuel industries can help create a “green energy” future more cost-effectively than totally green options. This article cites a presentation by a Shell official who discussed how oil refiners can use gasification to turn …

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Energy Trading in Germany

According to Bloomberg News, Germany’s largest energy trader is planning to expand its US operations. What a great example of entrepreneurial opportunism — RWE representatives state explicitly that they have not engaged in the types of questionable trading practices that are driving the financial uncertainty in US energy markets. This is how competition creates stability; …

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